Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. to acquire LearnVest

According to the Wall St. Journal, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., said it would acquire New York-based online financial planning startup LearnVest Inc.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Here’s your Too Long;Didn’t Read (TL;DR) summary:

At the time of acquisition, LearnVest had 10,000 premium clients who pay a one-time setup fee of $299 and $19/month ongoing. That’s at best $2.28 million in annual revenue plus $2.99 million in non-recurring one time setup fees.

LearnVest received $69 million of funding in five rounds from 15 investors (via Crunchbase)

LearnVest for Work, a “corporate financial wellness program” had another 25,000 clients. Employers paid or subsidized access to LearnVest planners for employees.

LearnVest employs 150 planners in New York and Arizona. Assume an “average” salary of $60,000 and you have an annual burn rate of $9 million (hat tip @MichaelKitces).

For now, LearnVest employees will not become advisers for agents of Northwestern Mutual

More reactions to the potential for conflict between LearnVest’s financial planning advice delivery and LearnVest’s ownership by a retirement plan and insurance provider are in this InvestmentNews article by Darla Mercado.